Queer Rep: Trans-Woman MC, Detransitioned Trans-Woman MC, Various Queer Sexualities

Content Warnings: Abusive Relationships, Talk of Self Harm/Suicide, Anti-Queer Violence

This book conveyed so much and made me feel so many things. Torrey Peters is able to convey many facets of Trans experiences through these characters. Thats what I loved about this book, the various flashbacks to people figuring out their relationship to gender. The many moments that I connected on such a fundamental level with the dysphoria characters were navigating. And also, the times I didn't connect, the times when the trans experience of the character was so foreign from my own, when I could learn something new about being trans that hadn't come to me before.

I never felt drawn into the main narrative. I often found myself reading through the sections in the present with little care for how it played out, always expecting someone to make a choice that derailed things again (and then I would get another great flashback scene). I like to believe that's the point; I felt I wasn't supposed to be expecting things to work out. Rather all I wanted was to learn about the characters more and for them to grow. Maybe they did and maybe they didn't.

4.5 Stars